


His & Hers

by janiejanine



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 06:09:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4908313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janiejanine/pseuds/janiejanine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One event, two perspectives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His & Hers

The knock at Cullen’s office door was a welcome distraction from the half-finished letter in front of him.

“It’s open,” he called, not stirring from the desk.

Judith poked her head around the door. “Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all.” As though he would turn her away if she was.

She came in bearing a cloth-wrapped bundle. Nudging a stack of papers aside, she perched on the edge of his desk and drew back the covering to reveal a vast, fragrant pastry, split in half, glistening with honey and dotted with almonds. It looked almost as good as the hand holding it.

“I passed through the kitchens on my way here,” she said. “It’s too big for one person, and I know how much you like them, so I thought you might share it with me.”

He glanced at it, then at her. Both were irresistible. “Well, since you’re here…” he said.

She’d known he wouldn’t be able to turn that down. Not that he needed such motivation to spend time with her, but it didn’t hurt.

She picked up her half of the roll, sighing with satisfaction as she bit into it, and he found his thoughts drifting from baked goods to other warm, sweet things. His half lay untouched as all his attention focused on her mouth.

He tried to talk about work. Work was safe, unsuggestive. Eventually, he knew, that subject would run dry, and he’d end up casting wildly about for ever more unarousing topics, finally landing on the giant, alarming nugs that had recently taken up residence in the stables, or Varric’s chest hair care regimen. If that couldn’t take care of the problem, nothing could. It might be ridiculous, but it would still be less embarrassing than what  _could_  come out of his mouth if he wasn’t careful.

He was painfully aware of her proximity. The light floral scent of her soap mingled with the enticing aroma of cinnamon. From his vantage point, he had an almost perfect view of her lips. They were, as always, lush and captivatingly kissable, especially when curled into a smile as they were now.

It wouldn’t take much. If she bent down just a bit, if he leaned up, he could capture those lips with his, tangle his fingers in her hair, tell her how much she meant to him and then lay her down right there on the desk and show her.

She’d taste like honey. Somehow, knowing that made it worse.

He could have handled it all, he thought, had it not been for the Dream.

Every night, it was the same. She lay naked on his bed like a gem on a jeweler’s velvet as he explored every generous curve of her with hands and lips and tongue. She was everywhere, under and around him, legs wrapped tight around his hips like she could never take him deep enough or hard enough. His fingers fisted in the sheets, white-knuckled, so close,  _so close_ , and then–

He woke gasping and desperate, release eluding him–both of them–yet again.

He kept waiting for the dream to turn into a nightmare. It hadn’t, yet. It lacked the sense of  _wrongness_  that usually pervaded his dreams; instead, it felt like he was exactly where he was supposed to be–which was almost more disturbing than the alternative.

Even so, not only was it frustrating in several senses of the word, it made it difficult to look her in the eye the next morning. He thanked the Maker he no longer lived in a barracks. If he talked in his sleep during  _that_ , he’d never hear the end of it.

Judith caught a stray trickle of honey with one finger, then licked it off, and he barely managed to stifle a strangled noise. That was simply  _unfair_.

If he kept his gaze focused somewhere past her shoulder, away from temptation, maybe he could keep himself from doing something stupid. He was skirting the edge of appropriateness as it was. He still hadn’t quite worked out how he felt, much less how  _she_  felt, and he would not act, not unless he was sure.

He was not that kind of man, even if, every once in a great while, he might wish he were.

Reason. Caution. Control. He could do this.

When he looked up again, she was studying him, head tilted like an inquisitive owl.

“Your hair,” she said. “You’ve been rumpling it again.” She reached out and smoothed an errant lock back into place, her thumb brushing softly over the sensitive skin of his temple.

His breath caught.

How long had it been since someone had touched him like that? How long had it been since he’d  _wanted_  to be touched?

Instinctively, he reached up to cover her hand with his, but she’d already yanked it back, and was busy folding the cloth into smaller and smaller squares and very carefully not looking at him.

“I should probably…” she said with a vague wave of her arm. Before he could respond, she’d backed toward the door and disappeared through it.

He blinked in the sudden silence. Obviously, he’d grossly misinterpreted the gesture. As soon as he recovered from his embarrassment, he’d find her and apologize. He couldn’t let this–whatever he was feeling–get in the way of their work, or their friendship.

He dropped his head into his hands. He was a  _disaster_.

* * *

Judith made her way across the wall-walk, leaving behind a cinnamon-scented trail.

Josephine’s afternoon meeting had miraculously ended early, and from it she’d gone straight to Cullen’s office, stopping only to filch a honeyed bun from under the cook’s nose. It never hurt to bring a little incentive.

Her knock drew out a muffled “It’s open!”

“Am I interrupting?” she asked, peering around the doorframe.

“Not at all,” Cullen replied.

There was one bare patch on the desk, just big enough for her to sit on. Every other surface was covered with neat stacks of books and papers, including the chairs. It was probably, she thought with some amusement, to discourage people from lingering.

“I passed through the kitchens on my way here. It’s too big for one person, and I know how much you like them, so I thought you might share it with me,” she said, unwrapping the roll in a manner she could only hope was enticing.

He gazed at it, the pull of responsibility battling with the desire to indulge the sweet tooth he tried so unconvincingly to hide. “Well, since you’re here…”

His smile, tired as it was, made him look ten years younger. She handed him a half and took a moment to appreciate his lips, which were impossibly seductive even when thin with irritation, but were at their best in times like this, when there were crinkles at the corners of his eyes and he looked at her as though sharing some private joke.

He looked paler than usual. His scar, always striking, stood out even more starkly. She’d never asked how he’d gotten it, not wanting to dredge up any more painful memories, but she could guess. The haphazard stitching meant it had been done in a hurry; its severity suggested a healer had been unavailable for a long time afterwards. Since he’d been involved in two narrowly-averted Annulments, she suspected one of those had been responsible, and she found herself torn between desperately wanting to know the details and being afraid to find out.

She wanted to know the details about a lot of things: the exact pattern and origin of the ink stains on his fingers; if his voice, which grew rough with anger or distress, would do the same with desire; if he ever thought about her when she wasn’t there, and if so, what.

She could have handled it all, she thought, had it not been for the Incident.

Two days ago, she and Vivienne had been strolling the edge of the practice yard, chatting while she surveyed the activity there, when she glanced to the side and saw something that pulled her up short.

The Commander.  _Her_  Commander.

Without a shirt.

 _Oh, no_.

Even the weather seemed to appreciate the view. Sun-gilded skin stretched over smooth muscle, broken up by a network of scars–more history she might never learn. Intriguingly, what looked like a tattoo disappeared below his waistband; she was too far away to make out what it was, despite craning her neck as if it would be possible to follow it to its conclusion if she could only squint hard enough.

She’d seen half-naked men before, of course, but she’d never seen  _this_  man half-naked, and it had evidently shut down all but her most basic mental functions.

“Eyes front, my dear,” Vivienne chided.

The words managed to penetrate the dense fog that had suddenly descended over Judith’s mind. “Sorry?”

With a sigh, Vivienne took her gently by the elbow and turned her around to face the forge wall. She finished out their discussion staring at its dusty stones, which had less aesthetic appeal, but were considerably safer.

She was never getting her dignity back after that.

She could only be thankful it had been Vivienne with her, and not someone who would have mocked her mercilessly, or maneuvered them closer to enjoy the show themselves. Or both. Vivienne might leverage this later, but at least she was spared it now.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t imagined exactly what was under all those layers before, but  _imagining_  and  _knowing_  were two very different things, and she couldn’t get the image out of her head.

But she had to, and that was all there was to it. Real friendship was too rare and precious a thing to risk losing–no matter how badly she might want to try.

She wrenched her attention back to the present, determined to focus on something less dangerous. Cullen’s hair, she noticed, was disheveled, likely from running his hand through it as he wrote. One piece in particular was sticking out, and it  _needed_  fixing, or it would distract her for the entire duration of her visit.

“Your hair. You’ve been rumpling it again,” she said. She reached out to brush it back.

At least, that had been her intention. But his hair was softer than she’d expected, and his skin was warm under her fingertips, and her heart was pounding and she didn’t want to move, ever.

He went still, and she knew in that instant that she’d made a mistake.

His hand moved, and she pulled hers back before he could push it away. Snatching the cloth from the desktop, she folded the sticky mass into a tiny, neat bundle, thankful to have something safe and sane to do with her hands, something besides unwelcome caresses.

“I should probably…” she said, and trailed off, too rattled to think of a plausible excuse. She left the room with all possible speed, careful not to look at his face, afraid she’d see bewilderment, or anger, or, worst of all, pity.

She slammed the door shut and leaned against the wall, cringing with embarrassment. She was  _hopeless_.


End file.
